andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) (11/12/85)
In article <275@cuuxb.UUCP> cag@cuuxb.UUCP (Chuck Gerlach) writes: >... The current discussion of network wide >censorship is counter-productive and only aggravates the problem by greatly >adding to the traffic on the network. ... Network wide solutions for >individual site problems will not work since every site is different >and has unique problems. ... If it becomes >apparent that sites can not control themselves, lets identify the tools >needed by the site's network administrator and see what can be done to >get the tools built. ... Its >not a question of which groups have to go, but of network management >and control at the individual site level. Well said, Chuck!!! To expand on those points... As is typical with many things, the real problem is being lost in the ad hoc solutions that are being proposed and used. The real problem is that the volume on the network is too high (actually, I suppose the *real* real problem is that people are paying too much for the news phone calls). Deleting newsgroups is an ad hoc, subjective solution that will only ever result in users getting mad at SA's. We should forget about this route and concentrate on ways to cut down news at each individual site. These ways will inevitably lose articles or parts of articles, but they must be objective. One way, that I'm in favour of and currently promoting, is for sites (especially the backbone) to slice out the middles of articles that are too long, and then refuse to transmit past a certain number of articles. (That was a simplification; I'll post a detailed proposal if people are interested.) So let's get the real discussion started. --Jamie. (spokesman(jamie, X) <-> eq(X, jamie))